Enough to Carry On
by theherocomplex
Summary: Donnie's letters to April are his only bright spots at the end of the world. Even if she'll never read them (TMNT 2012 AU, Apritello).


**AN:** Written for the "Favorite AU" theme on the tmntflashfic blog on Tumblr. Because really, what's better than sad, unrequited Apritello, and a zombie apocalypse?

* * *

 ** _Day 8_**

Donnie pulls one of the middle watches, which means he only snatches about two hours of sleep before Raph not-so-gently kicks him awake.

"Come on, genius," Raph whispers, flopping down on his bedroll. "Your turn." He turns on his side before Donnie's swallowed the startled yell in his throat, and starts snoring a few seconds later.

Donnie takes a moment to breathe, to will down the adrenaline rush. Raph know better than to wake him up like that; they're all exhausted and they're all on edge, and the last thing they need is for someone to think they're being attacked instead of getting one of Raph's cute little wake-up calls.

 _Serve Raph right if I cracked him over the head next time, though_ , Donnie thinks mutinously, and heaves himself out of his blankets with a groan. He shivers his way into his cloak, pulls up the hood, and heads toward the windows with his bo in one hand.

They've got a great view of the city from their hideout: forty stories up, nothing but glass between them and a quick escape to the construction site the next building over. Leo found it four days ago, and they've been holed up ever since, watching their supplies dwindling and quietly freezing.

A heavy wind pushes against the nearest window. Donnie slips his bo into its holder and leans against the glass, not caring for a moment about the chill working its way through his skin.

Below him, New York City burns.

What does it say about the past week that the death of a city — _his_ city — can't make Donnie feel anything other than weariness? It's more than being worn thin with hunger and exhaustion; he's run out of ways to be horrified.

His faint reflection in the glass stares back at him, unfamiliar without his mask: hollow-eyed, grey-skinned. He's lost weight, too, enough that his pads hang loose on his elbows and knees. The rumble in his stomach never ends.

An explosion blossoms on the other end of Manhattan. It's silent at this distance, other than a barely-there shiver in the glass under Donnie's hand, but the red-gold flames throw the humped, shattered bulk of the Technodrome into sharp relief. The hole in the Technodrome's side gapes wide, a dead, empty mouth, and Donnie's surge of bitter satisfaction pushes away his hunger for a few seconds.

The Kraang tried to kill the world, and they probably succeeded, but they killed themselves along with it. It's almost a fair trade.

Donnie pulls away from the window and starts his slow circuit around the floor. He hears Splinter breathing, hears his brothers breathing, and tries to focus on those sounds alone. When that doesn't work, he counts his steps.

He has an entire routine of coping mechanisms: reciting his old Japanese lessons under his breath, calculating the square root of _pi_. If he gets desperate enough, he can even try to quote _Space Heroes_ episodes.

The problem is, none of them work. New York's still burning, he and his family are slowly starving, and he doesn't know if there's a world left beyond the fires, beyond this tiny safe haven.

He still has an hour and forty-five minutes left to fill before he can wake up Leo, and there's still one coping mechanism left. Donnie keeps walking while he digs into his belt pouch, and pulls out a battered notebook and pen.

 _Dear April,_ he writes.

* * *

 _Leo and Mikey got into a fight over the last jar of peanut butter today. I don't even think they_ like _peanut butter, but you'd think they were both obsessed with the way they got into it. There wasn't really anything in it. Just a spoonful. But now Leo's got a black eye._

 _We're so hungry. Raph keeps saying we have to go on a supply run, but Leo and Splinter say no. It's too dangerous, the area's not secure — but nowhere's secure. And we've got to eat._

 _Raph says he's going tomorrow night no matter what. I'll go with him. Remember how Splinter kept telling us how we had to learn to work together? Well, he got his wish. Too bad it took_

* * *

Donnie hesitates, his pen hovering over the paper. He should cross that line out, find a better way to say it, but something in him balks. When has he ever sugarcoated anything for April? He's not going to start now.

 _Too bad it took the end of the world, right_? he writes.

* * *

 _I've got a couple ideas for where we can go. There's an Au Bon Pain a couple blocks over. If we're quick, we can scope it out, then grab whatever we can before we get spotted. All the fires will actually give us an advantage, if you can believe it — the smoke hides our scent, so it'll be harder for the zees to track us. In and out, total smash job. Raph and Casey's specialty. Too bad Casey has to miss it._

 _You know what? I miss Casey. Never thought I'd say that. But you've got it in writing now — don't use it against me, okay?_

 _I miss you. Please be alive._

 _Please._

* * *

 ** _Day 14_**

"Dudes," Mikey whispers, eyes wide and hands clasped to his cheeks. "Is that… _cheese_?"

"It is," Donnie says, holding the block out to Mikey. "We found a Trader Joe's about a mile away, and its freezer's running on backup generator power. There's no telling how long the power'll last, so we grabbed as many perishables as we could —"

"Blah blah, stop talking, _eat the cheese_ ," Raph interrupts. He lifts three egg cartons out of the cooler and shoves them into Leo's hands. "This is just a quick fuel stop. We need you to come with us to bring the rest back, Leo."

"There's more?" Leo blurts out, then glances over at Splinter guiltily. "Uh, guys, we really need to be —"

Donnie holds up a hand. "We need to _eat_ , Leo," he says. "We stripped that restaurant clean with one run. Yeah, it's dangerous, but if we're quick, we can load up for _two weeks_. That's why we need you."

The apocalypse's completely screwed up the power dynamics. Splinter's still nominally in charge of the family, so if he says no, they won't go, but there's a hesitance to all his decisions. Leo keeps looking to Splinter for guidance, but what Leo hasn't figured out yet is that Splinter isn't in charge anymore. Splinter's tried to keep it together, but losing the lair and losing any hope of seeing Karai again — he's broken, and drifting, and Donnie doesn't know how to bring him back.

He feels a brief, savage pity for Karai; the last he knew, she was locked in Shredder's dungeon, and as much grudging respect he has for Karai's skills, that's a death sentence at the end of the world.

Maybe Shredder had a last-minute change of heart, and let her go before things totally fell apart. Donnie isn't counting on it. The Hamato family used up all its luck getting out of the lair alive.

Donnie remembers the last few minutes as a blur of noise and color; he'd been dozing after a late night messing with super PACs, and then Mikey screamed, a long silvery note wavering in the air, while something yowled and buzzed nearby.

He didn't even bother grabbing his mask, just his spare bo and his belt pouches. Good thing his t-phone was in there, because once he made it out to the common room, there wasn't time for anything except trying to get to Mikey.

 _At least Mikey didn't get bitten_ , Donnie thinks, and shudders. That's one possibility he's not even going to consider.

Leo chafes his hands together. "We'll go tomorrow night," he says. "Get some sleep first, check the Blue Zones to be sure, and then we'll go."

Donnie sits back with a silent sigh of relief. A few feet away, Raph can't lift his water bottle fast enough to hide his grin.

"But for now," Leo adds, reaching into Raph's duffle, "we eat."

* * *

 _Dear April,_

 _Is it weird that today was almost a good day? Mikey was up and walking when I got done with watch — he's still limping a lot, but the gouge on his leg looks a little better than it did yesterday. Good thing we watched all those first aid videos on Youtube, right? Not too shabby on the stitches, if I do say so myself._

 _Not just that, but we got to the Trader Joe's and there was_ tea _. Tea and sugar. You should've seen Leo's face. I think that's the first time he smiled in two weeks. Most of the fresh fruit and vegetables had rotted already, but we got a bunch of canned stuff and egg substitute, and Splinter made us all omelettes._

 _We've got enough food for a month. We didn't run into any zees. Not even a Blue Zone. This is usually where I'd say, okay, what's going to go wrong now, because we're_ never _this lucky, but maybe the universe figures we've got enough to deal with. For the moment, at least._

 _Remember those mini peanut butter cups you loved? There were still some left. I grabbed three boxes — Mikey and Raph already ate one, and Leo's been eyeing the other, but I'm saving the last one for you._

 _I know that's like sticking a PLEASE KICK ME_ _sign on my shell, but I've got to have a welcome-back_ _present when we find you guys. And I'm working on it. I'm going to find you, April. I promise._

* * *

 ** _Day 27_**

The street map blurs into a tangle of colored threads. Donnie sets it aside and grinds the heels of his hands into his eyes. He would _kill_ for a pot of coffee right now, even if it's just instant. If he's being totally honest, he's desperate enough that he'd just eat the grounds straight out of the can.

How is it that all the coffee in New York City _vanished_ right before everything fell apart? The end hit so quickly most people didn't have time to hide, much less strip the stores bare, so where's all the coffee? Tea's great and all, but it's not coffee. Thick, bitter, hot coffee, strong enough to burn the lining of his stomach, with enough caffeine to make him _feel_ smells.

 _Stay focused_. He picks up the map again and squints to bring it into focus. April was in school when the first wave hit. So was Casey. And April's smart, so even if Casey wanted to go smash some heads, she'd have made sure they stuck together. Then what? He thinks they would've gone home to check on their families — there's no way April would abandon her dad, or that Casey would leave his dad and sister behind — but he doesn't have enough information. He can only guess at what April might have been thinking in those last few minutes, and she always managed to surprise him in the end.

He doesn't have a clue.

"How's it going?" Leo asks, sidling up to Donnie's makeshift desk. "Updating the Blue Zones?"

"Not really," Donnie hedges, because the thought of explaining his real project to Leo makes his stomach curl into a knot. He reaches for a pencil. "There's no army left, so no one's creating _new_ Blue Zones, but everything broke down before they could announce where they all were. I mean, we _could_ just wait for something else to explode, that's one way to be sure."

Leo shivers theatrically. "Yeah, I'd rather go with your best guesses than try our luck."

The compliment warms Donnie briefly, but his constant exhaustion presses it away. It's getting colder every day, and he can't get enough sleep. Soon they're going to have to risk a fire at night, just to keep from freezing to death — but that means laying out the welcome mat for the zees.

 _It's never easy_. He rubs his eyes again, then startles when Leo squeezes his shoulder.

"Take a break." Leo gives him a shake when Donnie doesn't let go of the map. "You're wrecked. Go take a nap."

"We're _all_ wrecked." Donnie shrugs off his hand. "I've got to figure out where the Blue Zones are before we range any further out — we're going to have to, we've picked almost every store clean in this area, and that means either picking a new hideout or widening our search radius."

Leo blows out a long breath. "Talk about picking the lesser of two evils." He sits down on the floor, back to the window. The sun is rising, just a thin dull yellow crescent peaking through the fire-eaten buildings; soon Splinter will call them all to dinner, and meditation, and then bed. Another day of snatching sleep, of pacing through his watch, and trying not to think about whether or not April's still out there. Whether April's still alive.

Donnie brushes the pouch with his fingertips, reassured by the worn shape of his notebook inside.

"So, here we've got great vantage points, along with a few solid escape routes," Leo goes on. His eyes are closed, and his mouth is curved downward in what's becoming his usual expression. "We're protected, if not particularly safe."

Donnie knows Leo's thinking out loud and doesn't require a response, but he nods along just in case Leo glances his way.

"But, like you said, we're running out of supplies. We're pushing our luck if we increase our range, but not any more than we are by hitting the same stops over and over." Leo shifts, a frown nicking his forehead. "I don't know how we got this far without running into any zee packs."

"Yeah, well, gift horse, mouth." Donnie scribbles a quick note to himself in the margin of the map. "So what's the verdict?"

Leo taps a finger on the ground. "Mikey's not up to a long run yet," he says slowly. "We only made it here carrying him because the zees had so many other targets to focus on."

Donnie tries not to think about that run anymore than he needs to — at the time, he'd been too focused on keeping Mikey conscious to register what was happening all around him, but bits and pieces of that day keep coming back, jolting him out of sleep. Zees sloping past, some of them running on all fours, all of them howling and drooling, people screaming as they tried to choose between being burned or eaten alive, the shriek of wind as the fires kept rising.

 _I hate you_ , he thinks at Kraang Prime. Being dead, Kraang Prime doesn't reply, but thinking it helps.

"But the longer we wait, the higher our chances of getting caught here, and then…" Leo groans, and lets his head fall into his hands. "I can't figure it out, and the more time I take to decide, the worst off we are."

"Hey." Donnie toes Leo's leg until his brother looks up. "We'll figure it out? It's gonna be fine. Okay?"

He doesn't even sound comforting to himself, but Leo gives him a grateful smile, right before Splinter calls them to dinner.

* * *

 _Dear April,_

 _We're leaving. Raph and Leo scouted a new hideout for us last night, so we've got everything packed up and ready to go. As soon as the sun goes down, we're running for it._

 _That wasn't the plan. We were going to try scouting farther out for food, because we've picked everything clean out here, but two days ago Raph and I got caught coming back from the clinic. Mikey's leg was bothering him and he had a fever, so we needed antibiotics and aspirin, so we went, but we got caught and —_

 _Sorry. I need to tell this right._

We _didn't get caught. We're fine. But while I was loading up in the clinic, Raph came in all freaked out and told me to hide. You remember Dr. Stafford's clinic? The one with the big glass wall out front? Not really anywhere to hide, but we kept still and figured any passing zees would ignore us. They get all weird and inactive at night, so even if a couple did see us, we could just run for it._

 _But then they came around the corner, and they were_ running _. The zees were_ running _. I've never seen them run at night. There must have been fifty of them, it looked like a swarm, and they kept making that buzzing sound — maybe it's like echolocation?_

 _I thought that was it. Fifty zees, wide awake? No way we're getting through a pack on the hunt like that._

 _They weren't hunting us. They ran right up to an apartment building across the street and started breaking in the windows and doors. I didn't even know there was anyone else left in the city._

 _It didn't take long. Fifty zees could take down a squad of marines. It didn't take long at all._

 _April, I'm so tired. I couldn't sleep. I just keep hearing those people screaming and we couldn't do anything. We would have died too. But that doesn't make it better._

 _I hope you're okay. I hope you got out and you're somewhere safe with your dad and Casey. I'm going to believe that. You're fine. You're safe._

 _I just wish I_ knew _._

* * *

 ** _Day 45_**

Raph drops something greasy and heavy on the floor in front of Donnie, missing Donnie's toes by mere millimeters.

"What the _heck_ , Raph?" Donnie yelps, and belatedly hops away. "You trying to break my feet?"

"Move faster next time," Raph says with an airy, unconcerned wave of his hand. "Brought you a present."

Gross bodily harm; sounds _exactly_ what Raph would give as a gift. Donnie shoots a glare at his brother, then bends down to examine the object.

"A…car battery?" he says, sweeping away a smear of grease. "Uh, thank you?"

Raph smirks. "What, no big revelation? I thought you were a genius. Our t-phones, Don. Charge 'em up."

Donnie gapes at Raph for a solid seven seconds before his brain catches up with the conversation. "You — you do realize that there's no service, right?" he asks. "So it won't matter if they're charged or not. Unless," he blinks, mind starting to speed. "Unless there's still some satellite coverage, and then —"

"Have fun!" Raph calls after Donnie as he jogs away, cradling the battery in both arms. "If you're not out by dinner, I'm eating your share!"

Donnie ignores him. His heart races, and he feels twice as awake as he has in more than a month. When the first wave hit, he texted April and Casey, sending them rendezvous coordinates, waiting with sick anticipation for replies that never came — and then the zees hit the lair, and Mikey went down, and by the time he could check his t-phone again, the battery was dead.

But now, now he has time to experiment. And even if the networks are down, if April sent him a message before they fell —

It's something to go on. If she sent a message, she lived.

 _For a little while_ , says the cynical part of his brain. It's harder to ignore than Raph, but Donnie focuses on the busywork of setting up a charging station, and eventually the voice fades.

He's shaking by the time his t-phone dings, confirming the connection, and doesn't stop as he watches it searching for a network connection.

He tells himself there won't be one. Better to plan for disappointment, so he's armored against it when it arrives. If April survived long enough to send him a message, he won't be able to read it. And really, why would she message him when her priority would have been getting to her father? It's unreasonable to even think it, it's selfish to hope for it. If it was a choice between talking to him or making sure her father was safe, well, it's not even a choice, is it?

 _Please_ , he thinks anyways, clenching his fists tighter. _Please let there be just one satellite left. Please let her be alive._

His t-phone beeps. _Connection succeeded._

Donnie nearly drops his t-phone twice before he manages to unlock the screen. The signal strength is pitifully weak, but it _exists._ Somewhere out there, enough satellites are still circling to give him this tenuous connection — and that means there are enough people still alive to keep them flying.

His eyes burn as he checks his messages. Nothing. The last message he sent — _We're one block from the playground, can you get to us? I'll come get you. Be safe._ — is unread.

"Oh." Donnie sits down, his mouth numb. His t-phone slips out of his hand, beeping cheerfully as it keeps charging. He doesn't hear it.

She never got his last message.

For once, Donnie's brain doesn't supply him with a thousand possibilities for what happened. It doesn't need to. That little note in the corner of the screen — _unread_ — is eloquent enough on its own.

Silence can be so _loud_ , he muses distantly, and shuts his eyes. Somewhere, deep in his memory, April laughs.

His t-phone beeps again. He starts to push it away — it's useless, he's _useless_ — but it beeps one more time, a sharper tone than the charging noise.

 _Message alert_.

Donnie can't get hold of his t-phone fast enough. The screen's locked again, but he holds his breath till his hands stop shaking, then enters his passcode.

The message springs up immediately, dated 3:06pm on the day of the first wave. He sent his last message at 3:08pm.

"April," he chokes out, and laughs helplessly.

 _Donnie, my phone's about to die. I'm going to my dad's and then we're going to Murakami's. I'm with Casey. Are you guys okay? Please stay safe, I'm coming. xx_

Two months ago, those two little x's would have turned Donnie's heart inside-out. Now, he barely notices them. Forty-five days ago, April was _alive_. April was coming.

He types back, just in case.

 _Are you okay?_ _I'll come get you._

Donnie pauses, then adds his own two x's. Just in case.

* * *

 _Dear April,_

 _I wish I had told you, just once, that I_

* * *

 ** _Day 53_**

Mikey's leg isn't getting better. He tries to put a brave face on it, but no one can ignore the facts: the infection's back, and the amoxicillin Donnie grabbed from Dr. Stafford's clinic won't even dent it. So now Mikey's feverish, and achey, and the skin on either side of the gouge has turned a worryingly purple color.

"We need to get to a hospital," he whispers to Leo and Raph. Across the room, Splinter's playing Go Fish with Mikey. Donnie figures they have about three minutes left before Mikey gets bored and wants his share of the conversation. "I know what to get, so it won't take long, but —"

"But it's _getting_ there that's the problem," Leo finishes for him. He traces the path on Donnie's map, then taps his finger on the closest hospital. "That's almost three miles out, and we have to avoid two Blue Zones on the way." He exhales, then nods, decision made. Not that there really _was_ one to make — it's _Mikey,_ and no one gets left behind, even at the end of the world. "Okay. We'll go tomorrow night. How're we looking on food?"

"That's just about the only good news." Donnie jerks his head back at the makeshift pantry, where they stacked an entire Walmart's supply of almost-food. "If we keep eating like this, we're set for another month. We need water, but I've got the iodine tablets, so we're set there too. We should still keep boiling it, just to be safe.

Raph sits back on his haunches with a groan. "Man, I am so _sick_ of boiled water. It tastes _dead_."

"Which is a good thing, Raph," Donnie says patiently, for the eightieth time. "Unless you prefer your water with a side of diarrhea, or worse."

Raph grunts and punches Donnie in the arm, but it has a _pro forma_ feel to it. They're clinging to their old rituals — Raph's bluster, Donnie's lectures, Leo's disapproval, and Mikey's wide-eyed non sequiturs — to keep their heads above water.

"You've got your list?" Leo asks, holding out his hand. Donnie reaches into his pouch, yawning and thinking about whether or not his t-phone's charged, and nearly hands Leo his notebook instead of his list. He chokes, tries to cover it with a cough, and knows he's failed when Leo crooks an eyebrow at him.

"Uh, here," he mumbles, and shoves the paper into Leo's hand. "Simple stuff, easy to carry — but we should stock up on whatever we find. Bandages, gauze, antiseptic, the works."

"The works," Leo echoes. "Maybe we should —"

A sharp, bitten-off cry interrupts him. Donnie whirls around and locks eyes with Mikey, who's pale and shivering, one hand clamped over his mouth, the other over his wound.

 _How long does it take for someone to change?_ Donnie thinks, unable to stop himself. _We don't have any record of mutants changing, so maybe the mutagen just slowed it down, maybe he's changing right now, maybe we have to_ —

No. There are things Donnie refuses to think about. This is one of them. In twelve hours, he'll have hospital-grade antibiotics to work with, and antiseptic, and real painkillers. Mikey's a fighter, the _best_ fighter. He can make it.

Mikey swallows hard, and gives Donnie a tiny nod.

* * *

 _Dear April,_

 _I can't sleep. I need to, I know I need to, but my mind just keeps racing and nothing calms it down. Mikey's not getting better. He's so sick. Splinter keeps giving him cool compresses, but he threw up everything that he tried to eat today and I think that's the scariest thing I've ever seen._

 _We're hitting the hospital tomorrow night. It's getting colder, and it stays dark longer, so we should be okay. The zees don't move around as much now that the first frost's arrived, but sometimes I can hear them buzzing when they pass by._

 _Maybe the winter will freeze them all, and we can get out of the city. I read on the internet — can you believe the internet still exists? — that all the bridges out of Manhattan are mined, but maybe if we got to a boat, we could get out. The article was from back in August, though. Who knows how accurate it is?_

 _Mikey won't last the winter, though. If we don't get antibiotics, he's not —_

 _I'm not going to write it. It's just dumb superstition but if I don't write it, it's not real. We'll get to the hospital, we'll get what Mikey needs, and he'll be fine._

 _Your Facebook page is still up. I know it's a waste of finite resources, I just couldn't help checking. I remember being so jealous of Casey because he could write on your wall, and you two had all these inside jokes, and I couldn't even like one of your pictures. It feels so stupid now, being worried about all that stuff._

 _But we're going to be fine. We'll get the antibiotics and Mikey will be fine. If I write it, it's real. You're alive._

* * *

 ** _Day 54_**

In his sixteen years, Donnie's managed to raise _planning for the absolute, ultimate worst_ to both an art form and a superpower. On his more optimistic days, he likes to congratulate himself on his innovative use of anxiety.

Today is not an optimistic day. He's not sure he knows what optimism is anymore. His body's forgotten what it's like to wake up without a knot between his shoulders, and a headache already forming behind his eyes. And that's just his _baseline_.

But he still plans for the worst — what to do if they run into one zee, what to do if they run into fifty, what to do if the antibiotics are gone when they get to the hospital — and that, at least, is something familiar in a city that smells like wet ash and echoes with the sounds of Mikey's coughing.

No, he has to be accurate: he hasn't planned for the absolute, ultimate worst, because that would mean planning to say goodbye, and he won't do that. He can't.

So he high-threes Mikey on the way up top, promises to look for a box of Lucky Charms, and then makes himself calculate the best aspirin dosage to bring down Mikey's fever. Because he will. He'll get the aspirin, and the antibiotics, and Mikey will be fine. If they run into any zees on the way, well, _good_. He needs to work out some of his anxiety on something that isn't Raph's jury-rigged punching bag.

Donnie and his brothers slip into the hospital like three ghosts, white-eyed and silent, and Donnie's so focused on getting to the pharmacy and planning for what to do if there's a dead electronic lock on the door and whether he should grab the Percocet or the Vicodin that he almost misses the movement at the end of the hallway.

"Eyes up!" Leo whispers, and grabs Raph by the rim of his shell. "We've got company."

Donnie freezes midstep, suddenly, horribly aware of the grunts and wet slaps leaking past a half-opened doorway, and scuttles back around the corner to huddle with Raph and Leo.

"That sounds like —" Raph shudders. "Ugh."

The noises stutter into silence for seven seconds, then a half-dozen voices fill the air with a familiar screeching rasp. Donnie's disgust evaporates instantly, leaving plenty room for the fresh burst of _hate_ that fills his chest.

It's not a pack of zees, and it's not some lonely survivors. It's the Kraang.

Apparently it wasn't enough that they experimented on his best friend, tortured her, ruined her life and her father's; it's not enough that they allied with Shredder and the Foot Clan, or that they kidnapped hundreds of humans to mutate them by force over the centuries. It wasn't even enough that they tore the world apart, and killed almost everyone Donnie cares about, or ever _met_ — they had to get between Donnie and what he needs to keep Mikey alive.

It takes all his self-control not to rush them; he holds his breath, tries to shove down the urge to _beat smash break_ that's blanketing his head in a red haze. _Is this what Raph feels like all the time?_ he wonders, almost giddy with fury, and grins.

"Donnie," whispers Leo, right against his ear. Donnie shuts his eyes; this is where Leo tells him to calm down and keep it together, and he will, for his brothers, but oh, he just wants to make the Kraang _pay_ , for everything they took from him, from his family, from the world.

" _Get them_ ," says Leo.

Raph roars out of their hiding spot, every footstep echoing over the tiles, and Donnie surges after him. He's never felt like this during a fight before. Exhilaration, yes, but not this vast need for justice. And even that's too pretty a word for what he feels — it's vengeance, a debt he's calling in that can only be paid in blood.

The first Kraang peers around the edge of the door, eyes wide and mouth sneering, but Raph's fist smashes its face into a slick, bloody mess before it can scream. Donnie's there a second later, ready for when the rest of the Kraang pour into the corridor.

He doesn't bother to count how many there are. They scream, and their tentacles leave sticky smears on his arms as they try to fend him off, but they can't catch him. He's a whirlwind, silent and unyielding, and while part of him is horrified at what can only be called a slaughter, the rest of him is almost happy, for the first time in two months.

It won't fix anything. Killing all the Kraang that ever existed won't bring back the world, but Donnie doesn't care. He can stop these Kraang from hurting anyone else.

Raph pulls him away in the end, not Leo. Donnie's arms ache and his lower lip is bleeding where he's bitten it straight through, but he stops moving the second he feels Raph's hand on his shoulder. His bo slips from his fingers and clatters to the floor, and he stares, and stares, at the dead Kraang at his feet. One of the robots is trying to sit up, but Leo flicks a shuriken at its forehead, and the robot collapses.

"We should move," Leo says, standing up like every movement hurts. "That much noise, we definitely got some attention."

Donnie nods along, then realizes both Leo and Raph are staring at him expectantly. "What?" he asks, his own voice muffled. "Oh, right. The — the pharmacy. Right." He steps over the bodies, eyes ahead.

He takes the Percocet and the Vicodin — always planning for the worst, that's the Donnie way — and loads up on anything that looks like an antibiotic or antiseptic. _Can't have too many of those at the end of the world_ , he tells himself, and almost laughs out loud. Laughing wouldn't be the worst thing, just a way to blow off excess energy after a fight, but he doesn't want to worry Leo and Raph. He can laugh later, when he's checking his t-phone.

Not now.

Bandages, gauze, q-tips. His duffle's almost full, he'll have to ask Raph to help him carry everything, but there's so much to take, so many bad outcomes to plan for. Eyedrops? Put them in the duffle. Cough drops, too, for those sore throats that pop up every winter. And inhalers too, in case Raph's asthma comes back, and soap. Lots and lots of soap. They're going to need so much soap.

"Donnie."

He whirls around, ready to bite Leo's head off, because can't Leo see he's _busy_ , but the words turn into dust on his tongue when he sees the twin horrified expressions on Leo and Raph's faces.

"What's —" he asks, then understanding hits him like a punch. "Oh. I was…talking out loud, wasn't I?"

Leo nods, a little of the stiffness draining out of his face. Raph just looks like he wants to puke.

"I'm…" Donnie lifts a hand to rub his face, then cringes at the blood and worse flecked up to his elbows. "I'm fine, really," he says, making an effort to breathe, and to finish each thought before he moves on to the next. "Just a little freaked out."

Leo wants to argue, but what would have been a reason to bench Donnie for the foreseeable future barely registers as a crisis anymore. Donnie knows he's fine, Leo knows he's fine — and even if he wasn't, there's not much any of them can do about it, is there?

"Okay," Leo finally says. "Let me carry that. We need to get going."

* * *

 _Dear April,_

 _I killed_

 _Dear April,_

 _We got the medicine for Mikey. His fever's going down, no sweat, but I need to keep an eye on his leg. Battlefield medic, that's me. He's going to be fine._

 _Leo's on watch, and Mikey's asleep, but no one else can settle down. Raph's been staring at a book for the last hour and I don't think he's turned a page. Splinter tried to get us to talk about the hospital, but none of us wanted to. I think he knew what had happened when we walked in, and wanted to give us a chance to get it off our shells, but what can we say? "Yes, Sensei, we killed a bunch of Kraang but now that we've told you about it, we feel so much better!"_

 _I like fixing things. I don't want to be someone who just breaks them. What do I do if that's all that's left?_

 _I've washed my hands about ten times since we got back, but I still feel dirty. We just keep losing, even though the war's over. I never wanted to kill anybody, but when I saw the Kraang and thought about everything they did —_

 _You know what's funny? I keep thinking about how you'll react to everything I'm writing, and how angry or disappointed you'd be, but the odds of you ever reading any of this are next to zero. I know that's not very accurate, but why bother to calculate the odds?_

 _Maybe you'd understand. You always do._

 _Present tense, right? Because if I write it, it's true._

 _I need to wash my hands again._

* * *

 ** _Day 59_**

Mikey's fever breaks on Halloween, an irony Donnie barely registers under the tsunami of relief washing through him when Mikey gives him a wan, cheerful thumb's-up.

"Word of advice, dudes," Mikey whispers. "Don't let 'em get too close. This _sucks_."

When the swelling in Mikey's leg goes down enough for him to walk, Donnie helps him up to the roof of the warehouse. It's bitterly cold, but Mikey pouted and whined until they agreed to let him get some fresh air. Donnie's ready for him to change his mind as soon as they get to the roof, but Mikey just limps to the edge and stares at the unbroken layer of clouds looming over the city.

"Dude." Mikey rubs his eyes with his fists, then keeps staring. "This is…this is…"

"Yeah," Donnie says. "It's pretty bad."

The last of the great fires burned themselves out, starved of fuel, during the tense, watchful days after the hospital. A few bright flickers dot the far edges of Donnie's vision, but New York is silent, the skyline jagged as a mouthful of broken teeth. It's impossible to look at the city without seeing the shattered curve of the Technodrome, so Donnie keeps his attention focused on Mikey instead.

Mikey's too thin, soft cheeks all but melted away, and his muscles are slack, his movements too clumsy. It'll be months before he's at fighting strength again, if he ever is, but he's alive. You take what you can get.

"Have we heard from…" Mikey shakes his head and shrugs at the same time, then scuffs his feet through the ash drifting against the ledge. "Nevermind. Sorry."

"We've got the t-phones charged up," Donnie says. "I get a signal, sometimes. And I've been keeping my eyes peeled for a short-wave radio. Heck, even a pair of walkie-talkies would work, I can rig them to…do stuff," he finishes, when Mikey gives him a _why are you even trying to explain this to me_ look. "Yeah, good point."

"As long as you know what you're doin', D," Mikey says. "Jeez, it's cold. It's like, _winter_ out here."

"No sunlight," Donnie says, pointing up at the sky. "Too much ash in the air. It's like —"

"Like _World War Z!_ " Mikey interrupts, his normal manic energy creeping into his voice. "Like, all the fires and stuff? It was like a bunch of nuclear bombs goin' off! All that junk went up into the air, and hello winter!"

"…actually, yeah," Donnie says, and can't help laughing. "Your brain works in mystery ways, Mikey."

"Don't I know it." Mikey coughs into his hand, but waves Donnie away. "Dude, don't worry. A little cough won't kill me."

Donnie flinches, but hides it gracefully enough that Mikey doesn't see. "Well, get used to everyone hovering for a little while. You had us pretty scared."

He sounds far harsher than he intends, but Mikey just gives him a guilty little smile. "Yeah, sorry about that. But hey, D? Thanks. For you know. Everything."

"Any time." Donnie throws his arm around Mikey's shoulders, and together they huddle close, watching the wind scatter the ash in the empty street below. He opens his mouth to ask if Mikey's ready to go inside, but Mikey speaks first.

"It's gonna be okay. Everyone's gonna be okay." Mikey bumps his shoulder into Donnie's side. "Right?" His smile is gone, and he looks about ten years older without it. Older, and scared, and so tired it breaks Donnie's heart.

 _It could be so, so much worse_ , Donnie thinks, and gives Mikey's shoulders a squeeze. "Right," he agrees, even if he doesn't quite believe it anymore.

Mikey frowns at him, eyes narrowed and thoughtful, but instead of arguing, he tugs Donnie back toward the stairs.

* * *

 _Dear April,_

 _Mikey's okay. He's okay._

* * *

 ** _Day 71_**

"It'll only take a second," Donnie says, jerking his head at the Duane Reade across the street. "You guys hit the supermarket, I'll check the pharmacy."

Leo shakes his head, mouth thinned to a hard line. "No chance. We're not splitting up." On his left, Raph draws in the grey snow with the point of his sai, the picture of disinterest. "We all hit the market, then the Duane Reader if we have time."

Donnie swallows the urge to tell Leo that with Raph around, you only need one beast of burden. "Look," he tells Leo, as reasonably as he can, "we've got about 45 minutes till we need to head back. It'll take almost that long to go through the market, and we _need_ to resupply the first aid kits."

"We can find what we need in the market," Leo replies, already turning to the fire escape. "Whole Foods has bandaids too."

"Does it have inhalers?" Donnie plants his feet and tries not to shiver as the wind blows snow into his face. "Antihistamines? Steroids?"

"Donnie, this isn't up for — you know what? Fine." Leo swings onto the fire escape. "Twenty minutes, then meet us in the market."

"Don't make us come looking for you," Raph adds, walking backwards to cover their tracks as he follows Leo.

"I won't." Donnie sets his t-phone's timer as he hurries toward the opposite side of the roof, carried as much by a burst of ungenerous satisfaction as by his own two legs. Leo's gotten almost impossible to wear down over the past two and a half months, but he can't put up much of an argument over medical supplies.

A victory's a victory, even when it's a petty one.

Besides, this gives Donnie a few minutes to be _alone_. He's not disregarding the danger, but ten more minutes of listening to Raph hum under his breath or to Leo drumming his fingers against the nearest wall, and he'd welcome a zee attack.

He loses a few precious minutes to hiding his tracks when he gets to the drugstore's snowy roof, but the hatch lock is long rusted away, and he swings into the dark interior without a pause. The air inside the store is stale and unmoving, with a faint hint of rot emanating from the front of the store. Donnie feels a pang over the lost food, but the pharmacy is well-stocked enough to make up for the disappointment. He clears an entire shelf of multi-vitamins into his duffle, and then loads up on antibiotic gel and bandages. Then toothpaste, floss, hand sanitizer, Ibuprofen, q-tips, allergy medication — all the essentials.

By the fourteen-minute mark, he's filled his duffle and a backpack he grabbed from a display. He stuffs a travel sewing kit into the last empty space in his duffle — waste not, want not — and starts to head for the hatch when a faint, almost-imperceptible noise catches his ear.

Something's buzzing at the front of the store.

Donnie's mouth goes sour in a heartbeat. They're here, the zees are _here_ , and he's still twenty feet from the hatch.

 _I've got this,_ he tells himself over the gibbering panic erupting in his brain. _I'm fast, and I'm quiet. As long as I can get above them before they see me, I'm fine. I've got this._

He edges down the aisle, pausing whenever the buzzing gets louder, then inching a few more steps when the sound begins to fade. As soon as he starts to climb, they'll be on him, so the closer he gets to the hatch without them seeing, the better.

Three steps, pause. Two more steps, one more pause. The buzzing crests, falls, and crests again, and then another voice fills the air, bearing down on Donnie an aisle away. Closing in.

Fifteen feet left to go. He's got to risk the climb.

Donnie pulls himself up the shelves, holding his breath. Now he can hear the zees, the heavy scrape as one drags a broken leg behind it, the bubbling rasp of their breath. And their _stench_ , the half-rotted, half-sweet smell of their disease.

 _And I thought it was some bad pastrami_ , Donnie thinks. He chokes down a belch of laughter.

The buzzing goes silent when he's one shelf from the hatch, and then one of the zees screams. Donnie glances over his shoulder, and sees a zee at the end of the aisle, one leg twisted underneath it, a thick layer of mucus and blood smeared over its mouth. It screams again, limbs twitching and spittle flecking the air in front of its mouth, and lurches toward him.

The other zee shrieks in answer from the front of the store.

Donnie hauls himself up the last shelf, and pulls himself into the hatch with inches to spare between his foot and the limping zee's fingers. They're still screaming, unforgivable feral howls, and Donnie thinks he can hear a fresh buzz in the air all around him.

More are coming. They always do. And now the stronger zee, the faster one, is climbing after him, snapping its jaws and clawing at him with bloody fingers.

He can't save them, but he can stop them, and that's as close to fixing things as he can get in this world.

With a hoarse yell of his own, Donnie swings out of the hatch and slams the soles of his feet against the shelf. The structure shudders, the zee falls five feet to land on its back, but before it can heave itself up, Donnie kicks the shelf again, hard as he can.

The metal groans as it pulls free of its fasteners. Four hundred pounds of shelving pins the zee by its hips to the floor, and its agonized scream follows him up the hatch.

Donnie looks back once, just in time to see the limping zee bury its teeth in the other's neck. Then he's climbing, frantic and unthinking, and heaves himself to the roof just in time for Leo and Raph to land in front of him.

"Hey," he pants, smiling weakly up at Leo, "sorry I'm late."

* * *

 _Dear April,_

 _It's Thanksgiving. Mikey did his best to throw together a nice dinner, but there's only so much you can do with spam and instant ramen, and frankly none of it's something we should be thankful for. But it's still so good to see him up and moving, so I'll be thankful for that._

 _He even managed an apple pie, kind of — it was applesauce in a graham cracker crust — and that was pretty good. I'd cut off my arm for a salad, though._

 _I'll tell you what I_ am _thankful for, though. It's not a long list, but it's all important to remember._

 _1\. My family's all still alive, and we're pretty safe. Relatively speaking._

 _2\. I found a gas generator last week, and I'm bringing it back piece-by-piece to our hideout. No freezing to death for us!_

 _3\. Mikey started training with us again. Just light stretches, but he's gaining some ground._

 _4\. We haven't seen any Kraang or zees for almost two weeks. They're still out there, but we're all sleeping a little better at night._

 _5\. This is the big one — I picked up part of a military broadcast yesterday on my t-phone. It only lasted a few minutes before it cut out, but there's a fleet of ships heading up the East Coast. Mostly military. They're picking up survivors. They're in Florida right now, if the broadcast was accurate._

 _I haven't told the others yet. I want to hear it again, make sure it's what I think it is, and then I'll tell them. But…I don't want them getting their hopes up for nothing. The ships may never get here. It might be a Kraang trick. We might die before then, and even if we_ do _try to reach them, I doubt they're going to let us on board._

 _It's still good to know it's an option._

 _Wherever you are, I hope you heard the broadcast. You and Casey got away, and you'll get to the boats. You'll be safe. I'd be so thankful for that, April._

 _I'm thankful I know you._

* * *

 ** _Day 99_**

Raph growls, low in his throat, and hunches deeper into his hoodie. "They better not being doing what I think they're doing," he mutters.

Donnie ignores him as he adjusts the focus on his binoculars. A cold weight settles in the pit of his stomach as the image sharpens. "Bad news," he says. "They're doing what you think they're doing."

Leo yanks the binoculars away, and Donnie takes the opportunity to stuff his freezing hands in the pocket of his own hoodie. Seven layers of clothes, and he's still sleepy and just this side of torpid.

"Damn," Leo breathes, air pluming in front of his face. "They're really rebuilding it."

For the past three days, a heavy, sullen snowstorm had trapped them inside their hideout, obscuring the windows and blocking the hatch to the roof. By the end of the second day, Donnie had been ready to crawl out of his skin — the storm knocked out any signal that might otherwise have straggled through — but with the snow down to a gentle drift, he and Raph managed to clear a path up to the roof.

The city had been beautiful, all the broken edges smoothed by the gentle, grey snow, and Donnie had enjoyed the peaceful quiet right up until he saw the flickers of light over the Technodrome.

It could have been anything — another fire, the US army making its triumphant return, space-faring dinosaurs coming to wipe the Kraang off the face of the galaxy — but Donnie knew, in his gut, as soon as he saw the lights.

"Why can't they just be _done_?" Mikey spat, his teeth chattering. "Haven't they wrecked us enough? They gotta stomp us one last time?"

"Have to admire their tenacity." Leo rubs the back of his neck, still staring through the binoculars. "Wait, there's something — they're —"

Raph and Mikey start jostling with Leo for the binoculars. Donnie steps back, out of the wrestling match, and watches the lights dance through the snow. He should be angry, and he _is_ , somewhere, but mostly he's numb. They survived for months, only to watch the Kraang rise again, the bloody work unfinished.

" _Assholes_ ," Raph hisses, staring through the binoculars. "They're just — _assholes_." His voice chokes off, and he hands the binoculars to Mikey without a fight.

Leo clears his throat. "We need to tell Splinter," he says. "We have to…we need a plan."

Donnie nods. There's no point in arguing; Leo always will try to control the situation, no matter how overwhelming, and Donnie would find it reassuring if he wasn't so empty.

"Uh, guys?" says Mikey. "We should get inside."

"What? Why?" Leo holds out his hand for the binoculars, but they're not necessary. Even from this distance, Donnie can see a few lights breaking away from the Technodrome, hovering briefly before shooting off over the city.

 _Patrols_ , Donnie thinks, fear piercing the numb haze around his brain. Raph and Mikey are already heading for the hatch, but Leo lingers, staring at the Technodrome with empty eyes. It takes almost all Donnie's strength to pull Leo back inside, to what tenuous safety they have left.

* * *

 _Dear April,_

 _They're rebuilding the Technodrome. They won't stop, they_ won't stop _, even after they ruined everything — I can't handle it. I'm so tired my hands are shaking._

 _Leo wants to move again, but where would we go? Long Island?_

 _Raph wants to get out of the city, and — are you ready for this? — I agree with him. The fires polluted the atmosphere in this area, and even if we get through the winter without catching pneumonia, we're screwed come springtime. The zees that died over the winter will start rotting as soon as it starts warming up, and — you know what? I'm not going to finish that thought._

 _The problem is, once we get out of the city, we don't really have anywhere to go. Mikey can't run yet, so we'd have to find a car, but then what? We'd still have to find shelter, supplies — and we don't know how far this spread. I keep getting bits of the broadcasts whenever I have service, and it looks like they're trying to set up a safe zone in Canada, but —_

 _I haven't said it yet, because Mikey's glommed on to the idea pretty hard, but even if there_ are _safe zones, I don't think we'll be welcome. The world's lost a lot of tolerance for monsters. I don't think they'd make exceptions for mutants._

 _Everyone's got to have something to keep them going, though. Something separate from just surviving. Mikey has the safe zones, Raph has his Great Search for Protein Powder. I have you. Writing to you, that is._

 _I dreamed about you last_

* * *

 ** _Day 105_**

Splinter meditates in his alcove every night after dinner, which means there's a solid hour of silence in the hideout. Donnie usually spends it working on the t-phones — he's halfway to rigging portable battery packs — but tonight, Leo interrupts him.

"Got a minute?" Leo asks, stepping aside to let Mikey and Raph in after him. "We need to talk."

"Uh, okay?" Donnie plugs his t-phone back into the charging station and scoots around to face his brothers. "What's up?"

Judging by the carefully blank expression on Leo's face, nothing good. Donnie tries not to fidget while his brothers settle on the worn carpet in front of him.

"You've been keeping an eye on the Technodrome," Leo begins.

Donnie's stomach drops. "Yeah," he replies, stretching the word out to two syllables. There's no need for Leo to say anything more — Donnie knows exactly where this conversation is going. "There's no way to estimate how much progress they've made, not without a closer look or knowing how badly damaged it was to start —"

"Air Force kicked the snot out of it pretty good before they went down," Raph interrupts, toeing a stain on the carpet.

"— but they've been working on it for almost two weeks, and they've figured out where all the Blue Zones are, so it's probably safe to say they're feeling confident." Donnie makes himself stop talking; babbling isn't going to change the outcome of this conversation.

"Confident enough to finish what they started," Leo murmurs. His eyes are far away, fixed on a point over Donnie's right shoulders.

"That's a safe guess," Donnie says.

"But it's just a _guess_ ," Raph says. Donnie know he's trying for belligerence, but he's too tired to make it stick. They're all too tired, greyed out and hungry, to sound like anything but echoes of who they used to be.

"Maybe they're gettin' ready to leave." Everyone looks at Mikey, who meets each of their gazes with a bright smile that doesn't reach his eyes. "A turtle can hope, right?"

Leo huffs a laugh, and shakes his head. "Not about this, Mikey." He lets a beat of silence pass, then draws himself up. "Whatever they're planning, it's not going to happen," he says, and chops the air with the side of his hand for emphasis.

All Donnie's memories of Leo breaking into speeches from _Space Heroes_ fill his head, and he swallows hard against the urge to burst out laughing. He's been doing too much of that lately — laughing at all the wrong times, braying and wheezing for no good reason.

On the heels of the laughter, though, comes a thick, heady wave of nostalgia. Not grief; his capacity for that's been long used up, but he can still miss the complexities of life in the lair, all the little rituals they carved out of trash to make their lives bearable. How strange, to look back and miss worms and algae, and anime tapes Mikey found in the garbage.

 _Wonder if my lab's still there_ , he thinks, and has to drag himself back to the conversation. Leo's looking at him expectantly, brows raised.

"Sorry, what was that?" Donnie asks. "I missed it."

"Clearly," Raph snots in an undertone.

Leo elbows him in the side without taking his eyes from Donnie's. "What I said was — they have to be stopped. And we're the only ones who can do anything about it. Us and Splinter — he'll be with us. He promised."

There are a thousand compelling reasons not to do what Leo's implying, and all of them spring into Donnie's head at the same time. There's _you think this will go any differently than the last time we went after the Technodrome_ , and _not everyone's a fan of suicide missions, Leo,_ and _what happened to getting out of the city_?

Excellent, practical reasons. Donnie ignores them all.

After the hospital, he scrubbed his hands raw trying to wash away the blood. He wanted to fix things, to build things, beautiful, strange things, just to put something good into the world. You built something, or you broke something — that's life, reduced to its bare essentials. Donnie knew what kind of person he wanted to be.

But the world changed, and he had to change with it. He breaks things now, until they can't be used again, and maybe — maybe that's a good thing. Maybe, when he and his brothers are done, someone else can come along and fix what few good things are left.

Maybe that person will be April.

 _Sentimental idiot_ , he thinks, but that doesn't stop him from brushing his hand against the notebook in his pouch.

"So," Donnie says, when no one else replies to Leo. "What's the plan?"

* * *

 _Dear April,_

 _Remember that fleet of ships I told you about, the ones coming up the East Coast? I finally got a good signal on my t-phone, and caught a new broadcast. They're in Maryland now, and they're heading for New York next. They'll be here in about two weeks._

 _The Technodrome has to go down before the ships get here. We keep getting these massive snowstorms, which is probably slowing them down — but the lights over the Technodrome never go out now, and their patrols are getting close to our hideout. We're out of time._

 _As soon as the sun comes up, we're leaving. We won't have any zees to worry about, they're all dead from exposure, and the Kraang are less active during the day. If we keep out of sight, we can make it through their perimeter, and then — well, after that, it's a bit of a blank spot, to be honest._

 _We're going to stop them. However we can. I promise you that, April. I didn't keep my promise to find you, and I'm sorry, but I_ will _keep this one. The Kraang are dead. They won't hurt anyone ever again._

 _I have so much I want to say, but there's no more time. All these letters to you, and I only talked about myself. I'm sorry for that too — but I want you to know, you were the most important person I ever met. You changed everything. I'm so glad you did._

* * *

 ** _Day 106_**

They make it to four blocks from the Technodrome before they're caught, which is about ten blocks closer than Donnie thought they'd get. He has all of half a second to feel pleased with himself before the Kraang open fire, squealing over the wind, and then he's ducking behind a car with Mikey.

"Just like old times, bro!" Mikey yells in his ear. When Donnie glances his way, Mikey flashes him a wide grin, and spins his nunchuks. "Feels good to get some action, right?"

In spite of himself — in spite of the bolts of purple light tearing past overhead — Donnie laughs too. He hadn't realized how tired he was of running and hiding until he didn't have to do it anymore. "Yeah, it does!" he yells back. "Where're the others? We can't get cut off!"

"Way ahead of you!" Mikey vaults over the car's hood, and cannonballs into a tight knot of Kraang. They scatter, metal bodies creaking with rust and wear, but they're up and firing again in seconds.

Seconds are all Donnie needs to close in from behind.

He's paying for not keeping up with his training; his muscles burn, and his bo's arcs are clumsy, graceless, but he fought the Kraang for more than a year — experience matters just as much as ability.

The Kraang try to split their attention between Mikey and Donnie, but Mikey's too fast and Donnie's too relentless. The snow churns under their feet, going from grey to a sickly dull red as the Kraang fall, one by one.

"I see Splinter!" Mikey calls, pointing ahead. "Let's go!"

Donnie gives his bo a hard shake. The last few steaming gobbets tumble away to mix with the bloody snow. "Right behind you!" he yells, mentally calculating the distance as he runs after Mikey. The Technodrome fills the sky overhead, torrents of sparks pouring from the gaping hole in its side. Two blocks to go.

 _We're doing it_ , he thinks, elated and breathless, then mentally slaps himself. Nothing jinxes a mission faster than a taste of success.

Still, he's laughing when he catches up with his brothers, and he keeps laughing when he joins in the fight.

It's relief, Donnie realizes. Whatever happens here, it's over. No more running or hiding or wondering if they'll run out of food. It's a cleaner end than he thought he'd get, and he's with his family. What more could he ask for?

The shot catches Donnie in the side, sends him flying off his feet. Nothing hurts, it's too soon for anything to hurt, but the air's knocked out of him when he hits the ground, and he can't catch his breath again.

Splinter cries his name. Donnie's vision wavers, but he sees Splinter's form whirl past two Kraang, then drop to all fours to try and reach him.

 _It's okay_ , Donnie tries to say, but only a watery, breathless mumble comes out. _Keep going, we can't waste time._ He plants his hands on the hard-packed snow to leverage himself up, but all the strength's run out of his muscles, and he collapses, wheezing, as his side starts to burn.

One of the Kraang slams the butt of its rifle into Splinter's head as he passes, and Splinter drops in a heavy heap, and doesn't move again.

"No," Donnie croaks, with the last of the breath in his lungs. "Spl — Splin." Somewhere behind Splinter, Raph screams, and Mikey screams — but Leo's silent, and Donnie doesn't know if that means Leo's gone or he's just too far ahead to know what's happening.

He pushes himself to his feet. The whole left side of his body burns — the only reason he isn't bleeding out is because the blast cauterized the wound — but he can still walk.

"Hey!" he rasps, and squeezes his bo. The hidden blade springs free, gleaming in the faint light. "Over here, ugly!"

The Kraang standing over Splinter swivels its torso to face him, and raises its rifle. It won't miss.

Donnie breaks into a shambling run, teeth bared, all his hate and pain narrowed to focus on the Kraang in front of him. They broke the world. Everything he ever had, every little joy, they tore apart, and they're trying to do it again.

"Not today," he pants. "Not today, not today not today not —"

Three things happen, almost at once.

Leo bisects a group of Kraang, eyes white, blood spattered across his face.

Splinter opens one bleary eye, stares past Donnie, and _smiles._

And a shuriken finds an unerring home in the rifle's power cell.

The rifle explodes, shearing off the Kraang's head. Donnie staggers back, shielding his eyes with one hand, and stares at the twitching, sparking Kraang at his feet.

"What?" he mumbles, dazed. "How?" That shuriken hadn't come from his brothers, it came from behind him, and Splinter is still smiling. " _Where —_ "

"Better question: _who_?" says someone behind him. A black blur weaves past him, straight to Splinter's side, and for a long moment, Donnie's too busy gaping to actually comprehend what he's seeing.

"Donnie! Behind you!" a new voice calls, but before he can react, there's a vicious, wet _crunch_ , and then a heavy thud.

He turns slowly, heart knocking against his ribs, and drops to his knees as two figures walk out of the shadows.

If he's dying, this isn't so bad. Everything hurts, but it's almost worth it to see April stalking forward, one arm raised in front of her, the other in a sling, and her face bruised but blazing.

"Not so bad at all," he whispers, and smiles. "Oh, wow, April."

"Donnie _,_ " she says, and kneels next to him in the snow. The shooting hasn't stopped, and Donnie thinks he can hear Raph "God, Donnie, are you — I'm — oh, _Donnie._ "

"O'Neil!" yells Casey, because of _course_ the universe couldn't even let Donnie die in peace, it had to send a Casey Jones hallucination to ruin the moment. "We don't got a lotta time! Now or never!"

"Okay, okay!" April shouts back. She touches Donnie's cheek, his shoulder, skates her fingers over his plastron, and it's all Donnie can do not to fall into her. "It's almost done. It's going to be fine, I promise. I'm here, I'm —"

"O'Neil!" another new voice screams behind April. "Let's go!"

April snarls and pulls away. "All right!" she shouts, raising her arm again. Donnie watches her through cloudy eyes. "Now, LT, now!"

The world goes white, and then the world burns.

* * *

 ** _Day 1_**

Donnie becomes aware of several things simultaneously: he's clean, he's warm, and he's heavily drugged.

The drugs don't do anything for the pain radiating malevolently in his side, but they're very good at making him not care. Still, he doesn't move for a long time, reluctant to do anything but float high above his body.

But all good things end, and Donnie slowly sinks back into his body. Now he's aware of a whole new set of sensations — the cotton sheet pulled up to his armpits, the subdued light beyond his eyelids, and someone's warm presence beside him.

He opens his eyes, expecting one of his brothers or Splinter and stops breathing when he sees April with her head pillowed on her arms, eyelashes casting long shadows on her cheeks.

If this is the afterlife, Donnie's sorry he denied it for so long.

It's clear fairly quick that he's not dead — for one thing, he doubts any heaven requires IVs or blood pressure monitors — because April's face is still bruised, just as it was when she appeared during that fight with the Kraang. She's gaunt, her freckles faded to almost nothing.

But it's still April. Not the idealized girl he wrote all his letters to, but the real thing.

Donnie reaches out with a fingertip, and touches a loose strand of hair. Real. A sigh shudders out of him, and he winces as fire ripples through his side.

April starts awake, eyes wide and watchful. As soon as they lock gazes, the tension bleeds out of her, and she smiles, bright as a full moon.

"Hey," she whispers. "You're awake."

"Yeah," he whispers back. His mouth and throat are too dry to say anything more. April reaches to the table next to his bed, and pours him a cup of water. She holds it while he drinks, and refills the cup again and again, until the pitcher's empty.

"This may be a stupid question," she says. "But how are you feeling? Do you want me to get the doctor?"

Donnie shakes his head. "I'm okay." Something catches at his brain, but he's still too muddled by the drugs and his long sleep to pay attention. It takes all his concentration to keep his gaze on April. "Are you — wait. Where are we? A doctor — where's everyone else?"

"Shh, shh." April grabs his hand and strokes his arm with the tips of her fingers. "Everyone's fine. A little beat up, but you and Splinter got the worst of it. They're all passed out — like, asleep-passed-out, sorry — but you'll see them soon."

"Oh." Donnie lets his head loll against his pillows. His mind threatens to come unmoored again, and he wills himself to focus. "Where are we?"

"The _USS Saratoga_ ," April replies, her mouth quirking up at the corners. "We're officially part of the recovery efforts. Well, I am. Casey, too, if you can believe it."

"I can't," says Donnie. Even if he weren't injured, drugged, and bedridden, the thought of Casey Jones, The Most Metal of Mortals, signing up with the US military would be impossible to process. "How did…" He looks away, and clasps his hands in his lap. A sudden rush of shame fills his chest. Someone else did what he couldn't, and he can't face her anymore.

"Hey." April touches his shoulder. When she leans close, Donnie can smell crisp, cucumber-scented soap on her skin. He shuts his eyes. "Donnie. I'm — you have no idea how good it is to see you."

Her voice wobbles. Donnie cracks open one eye, and watches as she wipes her eyes. "It's good to see you too," he murmurs. And then, because that's not enough, that's not even _close_ , he makes himself reach out and squeeze her hand. She squeezes back, clinging to his fingers, then stands up and wraps both arms around his shoulders.

He presses his hand against her spine, and savors the steady beat of her heart against his palm.

* * *

April shares her dinner with him. "You're still technically on an IV for another day or so," she says, scooping half her mashed potatoes onto his plate. "But if I have to eat this crap, so do you."

Donnie gives the mashed potatoes a dubious look, but he's unexpectedly ravenous after the first bite, and ends up eating the rest of April's helping while she watches, smiling.

"I'll make sure the galley knows you like them." She pushes a cup of orange juice at him. "Here, take this too."

It's cold and sweet and feels like heaven on his throat. He's never tasted anything so delicious, but any hope of a second cup is cut off when his stomach churns threateningly.

"I think I'd better call it," he says, with a longing look at the green bean casserole still on April's tray. "Don't want to see what puking is like with a gunshot wound."

April snickers. They say nothing else until she's scraped her plate clean, and by then Donnie has no idea how to start a conversation. He just stares at her, hungry for the smallest movement or contact, and looks away when she gives him a wry grin.

"You look at me like you're afraid I'll disappear," she says, covering his hand with hers. "It's okay, Donnie. I'm not going anywhere." Her thumb traces a slow circle on his wrist as she wipes her eyes again.

"Sorry," she murmurs. "I shouldn't be getting all teary, it's just — I was so worried. I didn't think I'd see you guys again, and — oh, _shit_ , I hate crying."

Donnie turns his hand palm-up so they can weave their fingers together. "I'm not going anywhere," he says.

April lets out a watery laugh. "Yeah, you're pretty tied up right now." She wipes her eyes one last time, then gives him a soft smile. "How'd you guys do it?" she asks. "We looked everywhere for you, the lair, the playground —"

"You went to the lair?" Donnie blurts out. "Darwin's beard, April, we had to bug out, the zees attacked us."

"Yeah, we figured." April's face brightens. "Wait! That reminds me! I have something for you."

"Really?" Donnie can't help what is probably the world's goofiest smile — a smile that melts away the moment April turns around with her hands full of faded purple fabric.

"I found it in your room," she says, a little shyly. "And, I know this is weird, please don't get creeped out, I kinda wore it? Like a good luck charm. In case we found you guys. And then I could — you know what? I'm just going to stop talking." She shoves his mask into his hand, then sits back in her chair with two red spots flaming on her cheeks.

"You wore it," Donnie says, staring at the frayed bundle in the palm of his hand, a warm glow circling his heart.

April nods, not looking at him.

"Is my —" Donnie pauses to clear his throat, to steel himself for what comes next. "Is my pouch over there?"

"Um, I think so, let me check." April rummages in a box on the floor, then holds his belt up triumphantly. "This one?"

"That's the one." His heart pounds so hard it's a wonder April can't hear it, and his fingers tremble a little as he pull the notebook — even more battered now — out of its pocket. "This is for you," he says, and holds it out before he can change his mind. "Sort of. I…wrote you letters."

April takes the notebook in both hands, like it's something fragile, and precious. "You wrote to me?" she asks.

"Every day," Donnie confesses, and turns his head into the pillow before he can see her face. "So really, I'm the creepy one," he says, when the silence stretches on too long.

April shifts in her seat. Donnie tries to hold still, but that lasts barely four seconds before he turns back to meet her gaze.

One tear makes its way over her cheek, but she's smiling. "They're all for me?" she says. "Seriously?"

Donnie nods. "Every word," he says, his voice shaking.

April makes a tiny noise, pleased and yearning, and stands up to kiss his cheek.

That would be enough. All of this, being alive and safe and knowing his family is too, is enough. But April lingers, her hair tickling his shoulder, and then she kisses him, her mouth firm and warm against his.

Donnie gasps — because really, this was not in any potential reunion plan, and no one can blame him for short-circuiting a bit — but April keeps kissing him, and it seems rude to worry when he's being kissed, so he relaxes into it, and draws her close.

"Ew," says someone from the doorway.

April jumps back, one hand covering her mouth — her deliciously _red_ mouth, Donnie notes, a bit giddily — and glares at the door. "Really?" she says. "You just _had_ to ruin the moment?"

"Hey, don't look at me!" Casey boosts a small, dark-haired girl a little higher on his hip. "That was all Crystal."

"Well, take your editorializing little sister somewhere else," April snaps. "We're busy."

"I can see that," says Casey, flashing Donnie a thumb's-up with his free hand. "Good to see you, camel-breath."

"Can't say the same, donkeyface," Donnie shoots back.

Casey blows a raspberry. " _Lame_. I'll give you a pass this once, D. Since you're an in- _valid_ 'n all."

"Casey," April says through gritted teeth. "Leave, _now_ , or I swear to God —"

"She wants to _kiss him_ again," says the little girl, wrinkling her nose. "Can we leave now?"

Casey barks a laugh, and swings out the door. "Sure we can, short stack. Let's go see if Raph's awake. You can tell him about all the shit you punched last night."

Crystal crows, delighted, as they disappear down the hallway.

"Three months," April mutters. She sinks down on the edge of Donnie's bed, still frowning, but there's a smile plucking at her lips. "I survived three months with _two_ of the Joneses. I have no idea how we're all still here."

As far as entrances go, that's as good as Donnie can expect. "How did you do it?" he asks, stroking the back of her hand with a fingertip. "If you don't want to talk about it, that's fine, but…I want to know."

April heaves a sigh that shakes her entire body. "I'll tell you," she says, "but you have to promise to tell me, too. Fair's fair."

"I promise," Donnie tells her.

April's story isn't long: she and Casey grabbed Crystal from her babysitter's, then made their way back to their families' apartments.

"Dad was gone," April says, her lip quivering. Donnie squeezes her hand, aching for her and for Kirby, but he knows better than to add his grief to hers now. What could he say, when his own father's still alive down the hall? "So was Casey's dad. We left notes, but…" She shrugs, and picks at the frayed cuff of her hoodie. "So we checked Murakami's, and then we headed for the lair. You guys were already gone, and the place was a mess. We couldn't stay. We holed up above Murakami's for a few nights, till the worst of the fighting ended, and then we started looking for food.

"We found Karai about three weeks in. She won't talk about how she got out of the Shredder's dungeon, and we didn't really ask."

"Probably a good idea." Donnie gets a smile for that, but April's eyes are distant, looking out over an unimaginable past.

"It was easier with three of us — two of us going out for supplies while one of us stayed with Crystal. Usually that was me and Karai, which was as crappy as you think, but she always had our backs." April runs a hand over her face. "We got through about two months like that, trying to find somewhere that still had power so we could charge our phones, but we never lucked out."

"I used a car battery," Donnie says. "Raph found one, so I rigged a charging station from that."

April stares at him, mouth open, then smacks herself on the forehead. "Dammit. Why didn't I think of that?"

"You had other things to worry about."

April gives him a wry look that very clearly says _nice try, but I'm not letting myself off that easy_ , but she keeps stroking his arm with her knuckles. She's been inching closer with every sentence; soon she'll be practically curled up next to him, and Donnie is both terrified and overjoyed at the prospect.

"Anyways, we ran into one of the advance scout teams from the _'Toga_ , about a month back. They were doing a sweep for any leftover zees, and found us while we were trying to figure out a way across the river." April swings her legs onto the bed and presses against Donnie's side. "Oh, sorry — is this okay?"

"Uh huh." Donnie closes his eyes as she rests her head on his good shoulder. "More than."

"Sap," she says, but he feels her smile against his plastron. "After that, things got…not easy, but we didn't have to worry so much. We had fresh intel for them, so they kept us around as guides, and when they saw what I could do, you know —" April swirls a finger in the air next to her temple. "— they got _really_ excited."

Dread clutches at Donnie's heart. "Wait, what do you mean? Did they do something to you?"

"Ha! I would've liked to see them try." April grins up at him, wicked and sly. "I got a _lot_ of practice with my powers over the last few months. Anyone who comes near me with a scalpel is getting turned into grape jelly."

"That's my girl," Donnie says, before he can help himself.

April just smiles wider, nestles closer. Her hair tumbles across his plastron, a bright contrast against the bleach-white bandages wrapped around his torso. "But yeah, turns out I'm not the only Kraang science experiment running around, so by the time we hooked up the _'Toga_ , the Navy already had an idea on how to channel our powers back into the Kraang power grid. It hurts, but with enough of us together…"

"You took down the Technodrome," Donnie says, awed. He remembers April shouting _Now, LT!_ , and then the world disappearing. "April, you're amazing."

She wriggles against him. "I had help," she says, but the pleased note in her voice is impossible to miss. "I wouldn't have gotten through without Casey and Karai. I owe them a lot."

Donnie has a thousand other questions to ask, but a jaw-cracking yawn pre-empts them all. "Sorry," he says, then yawns again. "I'm just so wiped."

"It's fine, Donnie." April sits up and turns off the light over his bed. "You're allowed to be tired. Get some rest while you can, because God knows they're gonna be picking all your brains for tactics as soon as you guys are up and moving."

"Yeah?" Donnie murmurs, eyes already sliding closed. "Sounds good."

He feels April's weight leave the bed a moment later, and tries to sit up. "Are you leaving?" he asks, knowing he's pathetic and unable to stop himself.

"No, no, I'm sticking around," says April. "I'm just taking off my boots, don't worry." The mattress dips again as she curls against him, her head tucked under his chin. "I'm never letting you out of my sight again, Donnie," she adds, her lips grazing his neck. He shivers, then gasps when she kisses the warm curve of his jaw. "Hope that's okay."

Oh, it is, it _is_. Donnie kisses the top of her head, and falls asleep smiling.

* * *

 _Dear April,_

 _You were still asleep when I woke up this morning, so Raph and I went up on deck before breakfast._

 _We saw a couple breaks in the cloud cover — no sun, not yet, but I've never been so happy to see blue sky before. It's not all broken. There's still so much to do, we'll be fixing things for the rest of our lives, but that's the best gift of all, isn't it? Just being around_ to _fix it._

 _In two days, we'll be back in New York. And we're not going to stop till we take back the city. One step at a time. And I'll be right with you the whole way._

 _Maybe tomorrow we'll see the sun._

 _I love you._

 _Donnie_

* * *

 **Note:** Sadly, ffnet doesn't make it easy to format epistolary fic, so I apologize for any formatting errors. Thank you for reading!


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